Ford, Toyota and other global automakers are unveiling models designed for Chinese buyers at this week’s Beijing auto show as they face tougher competition in the world’s biggest auto market.

Automakers are looking to China to drive revenues amid weakness in the United States and Europe. But explosive sales growth that hit 35 per cent in 2010 fell to just 2 per cent in the first quarter of this year.

Models due to debut at Auto China 2012 include a Ford Motor Co. SUV, a luxury sedan from Japan’s Infiniti with a bigger back seat for Chinese businesspeople and a display model of the first car from an electric vehicle joint venture between Daimler AG and China’s BYD Co.

Automakers that used to sell the same models worldwide with few local changes increasingly create products with Chinese buyers in mind.

“The products that we are building today globally have a lot more attention paid to what the customer needs in China,” said Kevin Wale, president of General Motors Co.’s China unit.

GM sells a Cadillac sedan in China with an unusually small four-cylinder, two-litre engine to meet demand from local buyers for smaller engines, Wale said.

“Nowhere else in the world would it have been done,” he said.

Automakers are targeting both ends of the market, rolling out luxury models for newly rich urban Chinese and economy models for the low-income but vast rural population.

Chinese auto sales growth plunged last year after the government tightened lending and investment curbs to cool an overheated economy and inflation.

Total auto sales rose just 2 percent in the first quarter of this year over a year earlier to 1.2 million vehicles, according to LMC Automotive, a research firm.

Global automakers kept their own sales growing faster than the market last year by taking share from Chinese rivals such as Chery Automobile Co. and Geely Holding Group, though industry analysts and companies say that trend is unlikely to last.

Sales by Volkswagen AG and its Chinese partners rose 12 percent in the first quarter, while Chery’s fell 22 percent, according to LMC Automotive.

“I don’t think that’s a long-term trend,” said Wale. Pointing to the experience of Japan and Korea, he said, “you should never underestimate the ability of a major industrial market to generate globally competitive car companies.”